Catholic priest charged with 'body snatching' after remains of child 'saint' were exhumed from British grave

Charged: Father Wojciech Jasinski is accused of excavating child 'saint' Witold Orlowski's body and reburying it

A Catholic priest has been charged with ‘body snatching’ after the remains of a child ‘saint’ were dug up in the Midlands.

Father Wojciech Jasinski, 40, has been accused of illegally exhuming the bones of Witold Orlowski.

Polish Catholics have campaigned for Witold’s canonisation since he died in a Mexican village in 1944.

The 14-year-old boy had prayed to God to take his life rather than that of a village priest who was said to be terminally ill.

The priest made a full recovery and Witold died.

Jasinski was arrested after police received a complaint that Witold’s remains were missing from his grave at St Raphael’s Convent in Bullingham, Herefordshire.

Police recovered them at Fawley Court in Oxfordshire, where Witold’s mother is buried.

Zofia Orlowski, who brought her son’s remains to Britain in 1953, worked at Fawley Court in the 1960s and was buried in its grounds in 1995.

Fawley Court had been owned by Jasinski’s religious order, the Marian Fathers, for many years.

Witold was laid to rest with a hero’s funeral before his remains were brought to Britain by his mother ten years later. The family was in Mexico after fleeing Poland at the start of the Second World War.

Fawley Court is a 17th-century home that had been owned by Father Jasinski’s Polish religious order, the Marian Fathers, for many years before it was sold to philanthropist Aida Hersham and her partner, Marks and Spencer heir Patrick Sieff.

Exhumed: The remains of the 14-year-old 'saint' were allegedly taken from Fawley Court